Re: If you could buy just ONE book about Aikido techniques, what would it be?

There are tons of threads on recommended books. Here's a bibliography I wrote up a while back for my students. It's a little dated, but...

(Prices were taken from Amazon.com; often,
third-party vendors have the item available at a
fraction of the prices listed below.)

Aikido Technique

Principles of Aikido by Mitsugi Saotome, lists at
$29.95 or $20.37.

A good beginners book explaining such things as
bowing and the traditional uniform as well as some
principles of technique amply illustrated with
clear photographs. Saotome also has a video
($29.99) available by the same name.

Another intro book for beginners. Down to earth
and familiar: excellent.

Saito Morihito, Nishio Shoji, Shioda Gozo

Any technical references by these three will be
good. Find Saito and Nishio at Aikido Journal
Online
(http://aikidojournal.com/catalog/catalog.php) or
Shioda in bookstores or Amazon. His demonstrations
are fun, though (for those not on the receiving
end of them?)

Aikido In Training by R. Crane, K. Crane ($34.95)

A large hardback book with very clear pictures and
descriptions. The videos ($29.95) are also very
clear and well-presented.
(http://www.coolrain.com/)

Irimi: Iriminage, Za: Suwariwaza, Koshi:
Koshinage, Buki: Jo and Bokken by Hiroshi Ikeda
$40 each or $120 for a DVD of all four.

Cheap at twice the cost and better quality content
than you'll find in most works on the subject.
You'll find several books' worth of materials in
the articles section as well as access to many
valuable online videos. There is also a discussion
board (no subscription necessary for this). The
premier aikido researcher in the west, Stanley
Pranin, runs the site.

Founder of Aikido by Kisshomaru Ueshiba (online
translation of a biography of the founder by his
son)

Caveat emptor. Don't call it biography--it's folk
history or mythology or hagiography, but far too
breathless and biased to flatter as biography.
Still, it covers the founder's life.

Aikido Philosophy

Aikido & the Harmony of Nature by Mitsugi Saotome,
$20.37 .

Without reservation, the finest rendering of
aikido philosophy in English. It's a disciplined
yet passionate attempt by one of his students to
make the infamously obtuse message of the founder
accessible to the average aikido player.

The Spiritual Foundations of Aikido by William
Gleason $13.97 . Difficult.

The author writes as if he's making notes to
himself with little apparent cognizance of his
audience. Nevertheless, this book examines the
underpinnings of aikido philosophy in depth. The
author is a 6 DAN under Saotome and teaches in
Massachusetts. I've been to one of his seminars
and it was excellent.

This book is an unapologetically critical look at
the contradiction & warts of aikido & the
implication of aikido for our lives. Sine qua non
for the independent thinker. The author is a
counselor for kids at risk. I've been to one of
his seminars and it was excellent.

The Omoto Religion and Aikido by Yasuaki Deguchi
Ueshiba (online translation a series first run in
Japanese) Aikido Journal Website Subscription.

By the grandson of the founder's guru, Deguchi
Onisaburo. Some insights, but a better investment
is

The Socio-Political Background Of The 1921 And
1935 Omoto Suppressions In Japan, By Thomas Peter
Nadolski. (http://wwwlib.umi.com/dxweb/results for
$36, order number 7524107.)

The best material available on Omoto, the New
Religion in which the founder felt so at home.
Predictably enough, less charitable than Omoto's
own materials. It's an unpublished dissertation.

The Philosophy of Aikido by John Stevens $17.00,

The Essence of Aikido: Spiritual Teachings of
Morihei Ueshiba by Morihei Ueshiba, John Stevens,
$14.00

Secrets of Aikido by John Stevens, $16.97 (All
Amazon prices)

Infuriatingly uncritical & fatuous. Nevertheless,
such is the dearth in English of materials on the
deeper aspects of aikido philosophy that these are
better than nothing.

Budo Training in Aikido by Morihei Ueshiba (the
founder of aikido ) $13.97.

Historical counterpoint to people like Stevens for
whom the founder was an unblemished avatar of
peace. This book has the founder waxing patriotic
in the militarist 30's --"This 'way' realizes the
genuiness of the Imperial Way.... The main purpose
[of Bu, then] is to enhance the prestige of the
Empire & to bring to light the whole nation."
Intelligent translator's notes.

Takes on the preoccupation with Musashi as a tonic
for all that ails the martial artist's soul.

Bushido or Bull? A Medieval Historian's
Perspective on the Imperial Army and the Japanese
Warrior Tradition by Karl F. Friday, InYo: Journal
of Alternative Perspectives Mar 2001
(http://ejmas.com/jalt/jaltart_friday_0301.htm)

Challenges the identification of Bushido with the
samurai.

From heiho to bugei: The emergence of the martial
arts in Tokugawa Japan by Hurst, G.C, The Journal
of Asian Martial Arts, Vol. 2:4.

Traces the development of martial arts from the
battlefield to the dojo; challenges the smug
condescension of kata-based Budo vis a vis
sport-based Budo.

Valorous Butchers: The Art of War during the
Golden Age of the Samurai, Karl Friday, in "Japan
Forum" 5.1 (1993).

Contra popular images of the samurai as selfless,
Bolitho demonstrates how enthusiastic they were to
acquire land. Serving lords could come later.

The Culture of Force and Farce: Fourteenth-Century
Japanese Warfare by Thomas Conlan, Harvard
University. Occasional Papers in Japanese Studies.
2000-2001, p. 15-16.)

Conlan details the narcissism and self-interest of
samurai who would leave the battlefield after
taking one head, enough for reward, or just steal
some poor warrior's corpses. Conlan did his
dissertation on battle injury reports and came up
with some interesting revisions on the nature of
medieval battle as a result.

Sharf relentlessly depicts Suzuki as a poseur and
dilettante. In sum, Suzuki didn't do martial arts,
wasn't a Zen master (he studied Western concepts
of religion over twice as long as he did Zen), and
was a tireless apologist for the most nefarious of
Japan's military aggression abroad.

DEBUNKING

Zen at War ($59.99) and Zen War Stories ($52.61)
by Brian Victoria

Detailed exposure of the support Buddhism--widely
billed as a religion of peace--gave to war
efforts. Victoria is himself a Buddhist.

INCOMPREHENSION

Zen in the Art of Archery ($8.00) by Eugen
Herrigel

Written by a Nazi professor of Philosophy, this
classic pronouncement on ‘Zen archery' has been
immensely influential in defining, Kyudo, Japanese
archery. It even ‘washed back' defining Kyudo for
the Japanese.

What they say about not watching sausages and law
made if you like them fits here. Yamada exposes
Herrigel as farce. In sum, Awa, Herrigel's vaunted
Zen master, didn't even practice Zen--or pretend
to. He was such an odd bird that even his students
criticized him, extraordinary in
hierarchy-conscious Japan. Also, Herrigel didn't
speak Japanese, Awa didn't speak German, and the
translator lied. I am not making this up.

DEBUNKING

Five Mountains: The Zen Monastic Institution in
Medieval Japan by Martin Collcut, $27.50

Shows that warrior interest in Zen was social,
political, and cultural...but not spiritual.
Though excellent, this book is of but peripheral
interest to martial artists and I don't recommend
its purchase.

Draeger repeats the usual canard that Zen is the
martial arts and vice versa. Despite this, and
another error noted below, Draeger is actually an
excellent source. I highly recommend the whole
trilogy (the other two volumes are called
Classical Bujutsu and Modern Bujutsu and Budo.)

SELF-CORRECTION

Japanese Swordsmanship by Gordon Warner and Donn
Draeger, $23.80.

Eight years after Classical Budo, Draeger analyzes
the spiritual teachings of Takuan Soho, who wrote
an often-quoted tract on Zen and the martial arts,
into Zen and Taoism (and others) and attributing
the mind-discipline pertinent to martial arts to
Taoism. As this excellent book is very narrowly
concentrated on the sword, I don't recommend if
for aikidoists although I do recommend TACHIYOMI,
which is Japanese for ‘standing and reading', of
the chapters on history.

OVERWEENING TACT

Classical Budo by Donn Draeger

Draeger famously set the distinction between ‘DO'
(as in juDO, for example) and ‘JUTSU' (as in
juJUTSU, for example) in concrete.

DEBUNKING

Religion and Spirituality: Japan by William
Bodiford in Martial Arts of the World, ed. by
Thomas Green.

Bodiford, a medeival Japan historian at UCLA,
savages the notion of the DO arising as a
spiritual compulsion of the samurai to perfect
themselves during the peace of Tokugawa, a
favorite teleogy of the martial ways. Indeed,
‘DO', he maintains, is shorthand for ‘Bushido,' a
newly resurrected concept introduced to the cannon
fodder of civilian Japan in the 20s as inspiration
for unquestioning obedience to the Emperor and an
invitation to suicidal zeal in every undertaking
on his behalf. Draeger, Bodiford maintains,
glossed over the impact of the ultranationalist
20s and 30s out of deference to teachers who had
fought in the Pacific War.

BACKGROUND

Honji Suijaku at work: religion, economics, and
ideology in pre-modern Japan by Fabio Rambelli in
Buddhas and Kami in Japan: Honji Suijaku as a
conbinatory paradigm, pp. 255-286.

While not mentioning martial arts in particular,
Rambelli traces the idea that secular
activities--poetry, carpentry, Noh (theater),
KEMARI (kickball)--can serve sacred purposes as
Ways (DO). This derives from the idea in the Lotus
Sutra--UPAYA or skillful means--that unenlightened
beings must be led to enlightenment in a manner
they can comprehend. (Honji Suijaku is a further
elaboration of this idea as it specifically
relates to the appropriation of local belief
systems--Kami worship--within the Buddhist
worldview and how this thinking seeped into
general consciousness from esoteric discourses.)
This being the case, there need not be any
historical distinction between DO and JUTSU as
enlightenment is immanent in any activity (thereby
rendering it DO whether it is carpentry of
kenjutsu.)

CANON

Immovable Mind by Takuan Soho trans. by Sato

A very influential text describing Zen in terms of
swordsmanship. This is said to be a good
translation (Suzuki includes a translation in his
Zen and Japanese Culture, but according to
scholars, it is nearly unrecognizable as Takuan so
much has Suzuki interpreted it to reflect Zen.)

Second in a four-part exchange between dueling
scholars concerning morality and Mushin. I
couldn't follow all of it, but I did extract
points of interest. The entire exchange, all in
The Japanese Journal of Religious Studies, is: